Last week in ashtanga yoga, I experienced something I had forgotten about.

Ashtanga yoga is not like regular yoga, as you actually sweat like a maniac. It's one pose into another into another without pause, and as such you really work it. You have to do this while trying not to laugh at the names of the poses, as well, all of which feel like you are making a visit to the RSPCA run by people that miss the 1970's in a very big way-Start with 5 Sun Salutations! Then we will go from the Lotus into the Plank, Up-Dog and Downward-Facing Dog! You're supposed to be able to last the whole hour in a room with the heater blazing (in order to accommodate the sweating) without stopping and without a water break, but as all of us in our class are relatively new to this, that isn't happening. Water breaks are a must. Gumby needs water or Gumby's clay gets brittle.

So last week we tripped out of the room in our bare feet and sweaty collarbones. Taking the hunk of my long hair off the back of my neck to feel the breeze, I walked to the water fountain. I waited my turn and finally stepped up to the fountain after the last ashtanga devotee had bounced off, and I bent down to the faucet.

Still holding my hair off my neck now to keep it from flailing into the water, I bent down, pushy the knobby metal button, and bent forward. I put my lips directly into the bubbling water, and gently sucked the water from the stream. The water bounced off the outside of my lips, a kind of aqua lip liner, and I just kept drinking the water, so cool that I couldn't believe a miniature ice box wasn't underneath the mechanism.

I've never really liked water. As a kid, I was a member of the Kool-Aid Patrol-if it wasn't flavored with colored sugar crystals that was a representative color of the rainbow, I wasn't going to touch the stuff. As an adult (and since as kids we were only allowed sodas as treats) I would choose a Diet Coke over water anytime-nothing like bathing in the forbidden stuff, famine before feast and all that. It wasn't until I came to England that I became a big water drinker, porting that plastic bottle of Evian, Brecon, or some other form of something promised to bubble out of mountain brooks. Kim used to carry a Camelback around with him, so obsessed he was with water. He had a euphemism he used about death-he once helped a friend put down his dog, and just before the shot was administered Kim offered the dog a bowl of fresh water, so that the dog wouldn't know the pain of the shot. From there on out, death became known in the households as "having a cool drink of water".

It's perhaps ironic-that which gives life became symbolic for taking it away as well.

I've become something of a Luddite, buying bottled water and sucking it down in between meetings, train rides, TV programs. I couldn't remember the last time I had been to a water fountain, I couldn't recall the last time I bent down to inhale the gentle water.

Was it when I was a child, in the hallways of the school and with fingers smelling of modeling clay and the crack of mimeograph ink snaking welcome through my nostrils? Did my little hands grab hold of the faucet with ease and noisily suck in the water, not paying attention to anything but getting that scratchy thirst out of my throat? Did I use the back of my hand to wipe off the remaining water, launching away from the little person water fountain in search of something less mundane than drinking water?

I remembered the drinking fountain in high school. Taller, not just a rectangle of metal watering device but the moniker where the uber-cool would gather, the blondes throwing their Texas hair over their shoulder and flirting in the jocks eyes and thrusting their hips out, perhaps unintentionally. The water fountain was the hormone watering hole of the pubescent. For people like me, people who didn't exactly fit in and whose goal was to stay under the radar, we had to wait our turn to use the water fountain, wait until the gamey and leggy antelope moved away from it and let the more damaged species drink, Darwin playing his cruel games.

I continued drinking, sliding the cool water down my parched throat. I let my tongue dart in and divert the streams of liquid I was sucking in. I felt the sweat beading up on my hot forehead, a stark contrast to the water. I couldn't believe how fantastic it tasted, and I kicked myself wondering why I didn't use drinking fountains more often. When I was done, I let the water stain my lips and chin, cool droplets that eventually pinged their way down onto my chest and easing the heat under my shirt and sports bra.

It was the best water I've ever had in my life.

It's amazing that something so insignificant can be something that I think about days later.

I haven't used the water fountain since, even though I've been to the yoga classes a few more times since. Sometimes you form an opinion of something and you just don't want it ruined.

Even if it's just water you're referring to.

-H.

PS-And now my dear boy and I are off for a long weekend in France. You know. As one does.

See you Tuesday.

PPS-another book meme, below. From Nuala

1. Total number of books I've owned.

I'm going to have to say thousands on this one, even possibly into the tens of thousands. My family is big on books and I am big on books, getting through 2-3 of them a week, depending on work. Currently I don't have so many-maybe about 150 or so. I have about 4 boxes of them waiting in Sweden, but I had big purges of books when I left the States and when I left Sweden.

2. The last book I bought.

Ya-Yas in Bloom and Amateur Marriage. Books are like Ruffles-no one can buy just one.

3. The last book I read.

Middlesex, and I weep and curse God that I finished it. I just wanted it to keep going.

4. 5 Books that mean a lot to you.

Me Talk Pretty One Day
Virgin Suicides
Lovely Bones
Wicked-The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
Running With Scissors

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 09:00 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
Post contains 1119 words, total size 7 kb.

1 Have a great trip! I loved the hormone watering hole comparison.

Posted by: RP at May 27, 2005 10:34 AM (X3Lfs)

2 Have a wonderful weekend in France! By the way, I didn't want Middlesex to end either.

Posted by: karmajenn at May 27, 2005 01:59 PM (fx1A8)

3 You just made me remember something...When I was in elementary school we had four whater fountains lined up next to each other. We used to point and say .....Coffee, tea, soda pop, pee. Ahhh those were the days.

Posted by: Tiffani at May 27, 2005 02:11 PM (KE4Gu)

4 I used to drink fountain water every time I passed one, but you can only see so many kids put their mouth right on the dispensing part before you start thinking, "This may not be very sanitary." Now I get most of my water from the tap

Posted by: Solomon at May 27, 2005 03:57 PM (k1sTy)

5 Have a lovely relaxing trip. Have you read the ya ya's in bloom yet? i am have been wondering if i should get it... abs x

Posted by: abs at May 27, 2005 05:02 PM (i3p5c)

6 Wow, I think only you could write about a drink out of a water fountain like that lol. I so pictured you there. Have a wonderful weekend.

Posted by: justme at May 27, 2005 08:45 PM (ddDNe)

7 I am so thirsty right now! I have similar tastes in books, many of those books are my recent favorites. Have you read The Time Traveler's Wife? That one really kept me going, didn't want it to end either! The book that kept me up last night was Case Histories, by Kate Atkinson. It has haunted me all day. Check it out. I am so jealous of your upcoming trip! Enjoy!

Posted by: Kathy at May 27, 2005 10:17 PM (flb/n)

8 Bon voyage. And not to brag too much, I am fortunate to have the best tasting mountain water piped into my house each and every day. Sorry that everyone can not be as fortunate.

Posted by: Marie at May 28, 2005 01:15 AM (0KXWc)

9 Water is the stuff of life. And France in the spring time? The stuff of dreams. Hope it's a fabulous weekend, girlfriend.

Posted by: Jennifer at May 28, 2005 05:00 PM (MbhV6)

10 thanks you for adding to my summer reading list... i love that feeling of never wanting it to end..water, books, love...life. have a fab weekend in france.

Posted by: keira at May 30, 2005 07:27 PM (lXI/v)

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